Effectiveness of Health Education Programme on the Knowledge, Attitude and Practices regarding Biomedical Wastes among Dental Professionals in Madurai City

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effectiveness of health education programme on the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding biomedical wastes among Dental professionals in Madurai city. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A list of 201 dental practitioners was prepared out of which 152 consented for the study. Written Informed consent was obtained from all the participants. A well-constructed self-administered questionnaire made in English. The questionnaire consisted of 27 close ended questions, consists of 8 questions to assess the knowledge,8 questions to assess the attitude and 11 questions to assess the practice regarding the biomedical waste management. The baseline data was collected and health education provided. Fifteen days later the 2nd data was collected, fifteen days following 2nd intervention final data was collected. The collected data was analysed using SPSS software. RESULTS: The present study shows consistent improvement in the mean score of knowledge, attitude and practice, at the baseline (4.2, 6.03 and 2.11), at first intervention (5.03, 6.82 and 2.24) and at second intervention (6.23, 7.15 and 2.53). CONCLUSION: It can be concluded that in the present study even though the dental practitioners had good level of awareness and knowledge regarding the biomedical waste management and also all the participants had positive attitude towards biomedical waste management but almost all participants lacked in executing the biomedical waste management according to norms in their clinics even after providing the health education. PUBLIC HEALTH SIGNIFICANCE: Government has taken many initiatives to treat the infectious diseases these can be prevented to certain extent if biomedical waste management is followed according to guidelines. If the government establishes a biomedical waste management plant at every district it will surely cut down on the cost and reduce the financial burden on the dentist